That was piss poor despite the score, we should pipe Arsenal (by default if all else fails) but play like this vs Villa Grealish and Watkins will punish us.

Just now, Gol15 said:

His runs are him at his best, look how good he is he deserved the assist just like Pulisic, amazing player, better than Kovacic for sure.

Kante last season and the season before was half the player playing the way you want him to play, when are you going to get that?

Why do we need to go over this every game? We have seen it time and time again that Kante is better in attacking areas as a support player only, it's a bonus of his game, but not THE thing we should focus on when it comes to Kante. Make him one of the focal points of our attacking game, and it will start to breakdown, just like it did last season and the season before. Kante's best position has and always will be starting from deep, hassling opposition players around our own half of the pitch, winning the ball back and getting us back on the attack. Every time I have seen Kante play a more advanced role, our attacks have broken down far too often and our midfield is destroyed by the opposition because it's lost it's one and only midfielder that can contribute defensively. It makes us unbalanced in attack and leaves us open in midfield which inevitably leads to more goals being conceded and more points dropped. 

Thiago Silva is MOTM for me. That's the difference top class CB with commanding presence makes. Replace him with Rudiger or Christensen and we wouldn't have won tonight.

Without this warrior, we wouldn’t have gotten 3 points.

1 minute ago, Gol15 said:

Make me your disciple, I'm almost sure @Malta Blue already is one!

 

Very good analysis on tv of how we are too slow playing the ball forward. Three times we could have got him away. 

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

Kante last season and the season before was half the player playing the way you want him to play, when are you going to get that?

Why do we need to go over this every game? We have seen it time and time again that Kante is better in attacking areas as a support player only, it's a bonus of his game, but not THE thing we should focus on when it comes to Kante. Make him one of the focal points of our attacking game, and it will start to breakdown, just like it did last season and the season before. Kante's best position has and always will be starting from deep, hassling opposition players around our own half of the pitch, winning the ball back and getting us back on the attack. Every time I have seen Kante play a more advanced role, our attacks have broken down far too often and our midfield is destroyed by the opposition because it's lost it's one and only midfielder that can contribute defensively. It makes us unbalanced in attack and leaves us open in midfield which inevitably leads to more goals being conceded and more points dropped. 

Kante is amazing, he can do it all, just live with it. 

16 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

Mate, it shouldn’t matter if he was playing CDM. Those misses are atrocious and if that was Abraham there would be multiple people on this board telling us that he’ll never be good enough for Chelsea etc. We spent big money on him, whether he’s LW or ST he should be finishing these chances and in all honesty, he doesn’t deserve to start over Giroud or Abraham based on form.

That is what I am saying though. Either start him upfront and see if he can get some goals, change formation so he doesn't have to play on the wing, or leave him out completely. He's not a winger, so we should just give up on him playing as one.

Win is a win. We’ll play much better than that and lose too. Werner issue is he’s low on confidence. It’s not about his position. We should keep the faith and give him a bit more time. 

I still think it was the Havertz sub which won the game for us, Lampard and Morris had a good look at those pie charts and was watching YouTube videos on the VAR TV, no wonder it took so long for the 2nd sub.

4 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Bit of a reality check. We might have to play some games with Emerson and Azpi. I love Azpi but he isn't the player he was and they are two full=backs who would struggle to get in any other top side.

Just so thankful we have Silva and Mendy as if tonight we had Rudiger and Kepa then that would have been a defeat - no question about it.

MUST beat the Gooners....................!

Yup, bit of composure at the back helped. Have to say I thought Dave wasn't helped by Werner not tracking in front of him and Jorginho being Jorginho and being too immobile to get across and help. He looked much better once Kovacic came on and covered.

Bizarre thing is that after looking so compact for months - we seemed to be easily stretched again without the ball. Which is a shame. I think the lack of Ziyech and his pressing from the front has been huge. We're also missing his creativity with the ball. Hopefully he is back soon. 

Surely we can roll the Gooners though?

2 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

Without this warrior, we wouldn’t have gotten 3 points.

Defenders like Silva are a dying breed. 

I look around and I don't see any young defender that looks capable of reaching the same levels as him. It wasn't long ago that you could find top defenders all over Europe, now it's hard to find a single one. 

We are at the point now where there is probably less than ten CB's at Silva's level at this point.........maybe even 5 at most. The game is desperate for more CB's of this quality.

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

That is what I am saying though. Either start him upfront and see if he can get some goals, change formation so he doesn't have to play on the wing, or leave him out completely. He's not a winger, so we should just give up on him playing as one.

I think this isn't quite right. Nothing to do with the position. He got 2 if not 3 glorious chances to score from the wing and fluffed all of them. He relies on shooting volume rather than accuracy, another day and he would have scored all three. 

I think as much as anything he is playing on the wing because of the injuries to Ziyech and recently CHO. Once we have everyone fit he'll be at CF more regularly.

 

17 minutes ago, Slojo said:

That you're an absolute twonk who nobody takes seriously, and you're likely on most peoples ignore lists. Which is Gol15. 

I've liked quite a few posts from @Gol15 He's certainly not on my ignore list. People like doctorblue on the other hand....

Just now, Valerie said:

I've liked quite a few posts from @Gol15 He's certainly not on my ignore list. People like doctorblue on the other hand....

I'm a bad boy Val, you better stay away from me... Once I become the second disciple of @Munkworth... 

26 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

Maybe they caught COVID?

Only excuse for them disappearing?

I'm just observing from a distance, i Kowtow to know one....

14 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Make me your disciple, I'm almost sure @Malta Blue already is one!

 

Exactly what we need, vital 3 points and showed we could absorb pressure when required.  Silva showed his class at both ends of the pitch, Tammy took his chances well, Pullisic is getting back to what we knew game by game, and even Emerson stepped up and played a decent game. At this stage of a long season, it's about rotating, keep players in shape, and mentally strong to get through these tough moments.

Wtf, wtf, wtf ?

We won but for a long time it felt like we were losing ? I was anxious the whole time, waiting for us to click into gear, but we didn’t, it was shocking. Quiet weird really feeling the way I did when we were winning 1-0 ? Did they even manage a legal shot on target? and yet it felt like we were behind, really strange? 

I didn’t enjoy the first 70 minutes, it was awful, truly truly awful, nothing about the performance aside from Silva’s goal was decent or enjoyable, we were a shambles, it was embarrassing, I couldn’t see any positives ? 

Taking Jorginho off bringing Kovacic on and dropping Kante into the defensive midfield role improved things and seemed to lift the players too ?

Cant believe Werners first, second, third, well frankly, any touch, is so bad ? Sadly he’s not alone.

Cannot play this way v them c**ts on Boxing Day.

Thank goodness for Silva’s performance and the 3 points.

 

Played like sh*t for 65 minutes of this game. But 3 points is 3 points. We will take it! 

8 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Is this about me being a disciple, about @Gol15 being a disciple, both of us being a disciple or anyone being a disciple?

Just now, Spiller86 said:

I think this isn't quite right. Nothing to do with the position. He got 2 if not 3 glorious chances to score from the wing and fluffed all of them. He relies on shooting volume rather than accuracy, another day and he would have scored all three. 

I think as much as anything he is playing on the wing because of the injuries to Ziyech and recently CHO. Once we have everyone fit he'll be at CF more regularly.

 

I'm more concerned about how he plays on the wing rather than his finishing. Like I said in a previous post, I'm not excusing his poor finishing, but it's the other parts of his game on the wing that concerns me the most. His touch is poor when he is out wide, even more so when he has a couple of players all over him, he can't beat his man because he doesn't have the skillset of a player like Pulisic, or even wingers we have let go like Pedro, Willian and especially Hazard. He's also really bad with his back to goal. Basically, he's not a winger.

The only way we would ever get any sort of success with Werner on the wing is if we played counter attacking football, but that isn't going to happen. Werner is actually quite similar to Vardy, he's not as clinical, but he is somebody that loves to be the one running towards goal at full pace and finishing off chances. Putting him on the wing, slowing him down, facing away from goal and asking him to take on full backs in a packed defense is not utilising him correctly.

The sign of a good team, play relatively sh*t and win 3.0. But in all seriousness there were some positives, Silva, Kante, Mount and Tammy all had decent games. Things are not quite clicking at the moment but they will again soon. UTC.

16 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I'm a bad boy Val, you better stay away from me... Once I become the second disciple of @Munkworth... 

@Munkworth is the devil, isn't he... he has a black cat and all 

Just now, Valerie said:

@Munkworth is the devil, isn't he... he has a black cat and all 

That's funny, I imagined he had a fat ginger cat that he actually named Garfield